Contents
ABOUT
As a marketing professional, I'm always on the lookout for a new challenge to push my skills to the limit. And when I decided to tackle the world of website SEO, I knew I was in for an exciting ride. In this independent case study, I'll be sharing with you how I helped a Russian B2B client achieve significant success through SEO promotion. And even show you REAL figures! I could not find a single similar case in the B2B sphere with concrete ROI and revenue growth numbers from SEO improvements.
Over the course of nearly two years, I worked closely with the client to optimize their website, improve their search engine rankings, and increase their online visibility. In this article, I'll provide a detailed analysis of the SEO strategies I implemented, as well as the incredible revenue growth that resulted. So if you're ready to learn how to enhance your B2B business's online presence and boost revenue, then keep reading. This case study is a must-read for anyone interested in unleashing the power of SEO for B2B businesses!
Project Overview: A Little Story About my Client's Company
Rentgen has a fascinating backstory. In the 90s, the factory was part of the huge diamond manufacturer "Alrosa," which is still operating to this day. The main purpose of Rentgen was to make rubber and plastic products for the production equipment, machines, etc., needed by Alrosa. However, in 1995, Rentgen gained its independence and became a joint-stock company with many stakeholders. In 2000, after the death of a competent and outstanding CEO of Rentgen, hard times came for the company. By 2019, it was in serious debt and close to bankruptcy. At that time, Denis Holodenko, a young and enterprising 21-year-old man, agreed to buy out the unprofitable company. After a couple of years, he made Rentgen profitable, and he still owns and manages the company today. This is an article written by Denis, where he shares his story of success and tips on managing an unprofitable company.
The goal this time was straightforward: Rentgen aimed to explore a new profitable and easy-to-sell niche - manufacturing and selling rubber bushings - and required more leads for this area. Also the company started to lose online visibility of the website by all pages! And If you have less traffic, you have less new clients. And old clients have a special quality— they reduce with time.
What's rubber bushings?
Rubber bushings are used to absorb shock and reduce vibration in mechanical systems. They are commonly used in applications where two metal components meet and need to move against each other, such as suspension systems, steering linkages, and engine mounts.
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The advantages of this product are:
1.
There is a big enough and stable market for them, as many industries and B2B businesses require this little rubber product.
2.
They are easy to sell. If you have certain sized bushings, there will be a deal!
3.
You do not need to produce ALL different bushings. You only need a few, and you need to know where you can buy the others. So if you have a list of different manufacturers, you can resell their bushings.
Therefore, the goal was simple: generate more leads from SEO and fix problems which caused a loss of positions of other pages. Rentgen wanted to generate leads only using SEO and not direct advertising. It was a difficult yet interesting task, and I took it up!
Chapter 1: Recalling Previous Experience
The goal is clear, but how do we achieve it? This project is my first venture into website SEO, but I do have prior experience with YouTube SEO. I created my own channel for a Taekwondo Club in Saint-Petersburg and also managed a channel for a custom broker who is also my client. Over the past three years, I have learned how to create videos targeting specific keywords that users search for. However, website SEO was a new challenge for me. I needed to adapt my skills and knowledge to this different platform.
So I start thinking. Yeah, SEO for YouTube have quite similar rules to make it effective:
1.
Think about your auditory: what they want to know, what keywords they write down in the sidebar of Youtube to find videos?
2.
Write down these keywords yourself – but in incognito mode, thats important, because you need to see the real picture without Google suggesting you some videos based on data it has on you.
3.
Think what you can do better than videos of your competitors for these keyword.
Yeah, that's all, what you need to do.
With SEO for websites these steps are the same, but you need to keep in mind far more microsteps also: because it is necessary to take into account much more various factors.
"We have a website, but..."
The thing is – of course, if you want to make really great results, you need full control of your website, that's why for our goals it was impossible just leaning on rentgen.pro made on really (REALLY) old CMS without possibilities to implement all my my current and future SEO-ideas.
So, after few weeks of weighing all the pros and cons, I made a strategy:
1 step
First website – rentgen.pro without changing CMS system will be our field for SEO-experiments (link on articles about why its important to make experiments in marketing).
2 step
We will build a brand new website specifically for rubber bushings – with our full control on design and code.
3 step
The best and most effective solutions tested on a real website rentgen.pro, will be taken into account when creating, filling and further work on the CEO for the new site.
4 step
Rentgen.pro will later become a link donor for the fastest possible acceleration in the CEO of the new site
We discussed in detail the strategy that I came up with. Then I prescribed all the works that need to be included in the contract in order to achieve the desired goals, signed it and I started working.
Competitors and Niche
Just make your website better and provide more valuable content than your competitors – and you will conquer the web!
Because this website is a place where we show what do we have, which products we are producing and trying to sell it, I needed to understand weaknesses of my competitors: WHAT CAN I MAKE BETTER THAN THEY DID??? How can I provide this understanding that we have EXACTLY what potential customers need. And so they would not go from our website to another — because they would be satisfied by our.
From my point of view, competition in almost any B2B market is weaker all in all compared to B2C market. So, I collected my competitors and l studied their websites to understand what they are - and what seems inconvenient, unnecessary to me in them, and in general, so that I could do better.
Main issues were:
1.
With one exception (littek.ru) — it was clear that the sites were NOT created by SEO specialists. Also that they have a lot of simple mistakes in SEO-structure of site and pages at this site.
2.
Rubber bushings were divided into categories in different ways on each site. Which was amazing for me! How does each production define categories according to its own criteria? And then how can the user deal with it?
3.
Not only categories, but sizes for bushings were also made differently and be written differently on different websites! How could I provide best content in this niche for clients if there is even no standarts in the niche?
4.
Because of low-traffic in these niche, for some keywords Google and Yandex give you wrong pages of products when there is right one. google gave the same results for completely different queries. for example, sleeve and bushing 10-10 10-10,6, and bushing 10-10-6 it is completely different bushes, and I noticed that neither Google or Yandex couldn't give exactly what people asked.
Based on this info which I explored, I started generating ideas to make rentgen.pro better. Better than the competition!
Chapter 2: Let's Redesign What We Can and Improve Performance
First of all, since rubber bushings are now our main goal for SEO promotion and all emphasis should be placed on this category, it was necessary to redesign the logic of the site and all pages involved in this to strengthen the category of rubber bushings. So, lets have a look on changes which were needed to achieve this.
Design and common points:
1.
Text was brown and hardly readable – I changed that. Also, let's admit it - brown is one of the worst colors for any website, especially for text.
2.
Brown-White-Black style changed on Black-White. Cause it was just bad UI. Of course, I didn't have an option to make bigger changes (still this is CMS from 90's)... Only Logo remains the same brown patterns.
3.
Removed LiveChat, because it provided NO convertions at all for the last 6 months. I was really surprised when I realized that a tool that claims a SIGNIFICANT increase in the number of conversions on the site does not give ANY!
4.
Repaired the Search for website, cause even though it was there it didn't work.
5.
Сompressed the pictures for faster loading
6.
Improved the speed insight indicators as much as I could (you can optimize better, but this is already the internal platform that you can't reach – they don't even support the modern compression format WebP, I asked)
7.
Simplified the feedback form (the button and the submit a request window) – since some fields of the form were mandatory and I could not change it (this is how the CMS was created), I removed at least what could be removed. There is nothing worse for the conversion rate of the site than a thousand fields in the feedback form!
8.
Optimized titles, H1-H4 etc. Standart SEO-routine
Main Page:
1.
Click Map and Scroll Map showed me that almost all text on the main page is scrolled by the user. At least 50% of info on the page had to go away or be rewrited. I did that as well as repaired all links which didnt work.
2.
Also for the main page I add categories area for better UX-experience. Of course, "bushings" category was placed first in the list.
3.
All broken links were repaired. Also I added links for pictures because from previous projects I know that sometimes the user wants to click on the image and is frustrated when the design does not provide for the transition to the desired category by clicking on the image.
4.
Added a lot more pictures of various bushings to the carousel under the header of the site – yeah, I'm using every tool which can help say to user WE HAVE BUSHINGS, WE PRODUCE THEM etc.
5.
Added YouTube-link for the basement of the site. Yeah, around one year ago I helped Denis to make a few videos for the channel just to create more trust among potential consumers in comparison with competitors.
6.
I put "rubber bushings" straight to main menu for the fastest set of traffic by this category. This is part of the work of [inner linking] the site
7.
Based on unemportancy and low-traffic of page "for shareholders" I removed it from main menu.
8.
I discussed 2 phone numbers in the heading and leave only one there – for the convenience of user and increasing conversion.
Category page:
1.
As well as I did it for the main page, I added convertional text for the category page: for customer not leaving our company, because MOST LIKELY WE HAVE EXACTLY WHAT YOU NEED.
2.
Optimized titles, H1-H4 etc. And remove some useless for SEO text paragraphs.
3.
Renamed all category links.
/vlulki-1 became /rezinovye-vtulki (rezynovye = rubber, vtulki = bushings) to fully enter the main keyword, which will need to be promoted.
Product page:
1.
For every page I added convertional text. Short version: "Couldn't find a bushing you need? Just send us a message via email, we definitely have exactly what you are looking for!"
2.
Repaired the "Search" bar for the website, cause even though it was there it didn't work.
3.
I made cross-linking from one product with similar inner diameter to others with the same inner diameter. It makes user experience better, also performance of website (page depth) is slightly better.
After all implementations THAT happened:
Implementations definitely improved Google's and Yandex attitude to the site, as well as usability for the user.As you now can see, it's crucially substantial to make SEO only using holistic, comprehensive approach! You'll see this later in the article also.
Chapter 3: Let's Dig Deeper and Start Experimental Stage
Because who are just making what gurus say to do – those will have average results. Everytime you need first of all try to find something, what nobody sees.
With a coordinated strategy, I started the most creative and interesting stage. I had to figure out what I could potentially do to beat our competitors, aka experiments stage.
Of course, these ideas didn't come in my head in a moment. Like every continuous and long run marketing campaign needs from me to think way more than just "make something". But I like thinking, and despite the fact that all these ideas came to my mind gradually, for simplicity I will make a list and write down the results of each of them (this list will supplement):
I placed this techniques in order from not the most important for SEO website promotion in B2B topics to the most important. Ranked based on the data and the site analytics that are available to me at the moment.
1 technique: make MORE pages, not less
Despite the fact, that every one of specialists suggest NOT to make more articles or just pages for better SEO, I decided, that it might work in our situation.
Result:
for almost thousand low traffic keywords we have 1 places in search results! Guess, what will be about the conversion not only in click to our website, but even in selling?????
And so far I see all the signs that it's working.
2 technique: just REPAIR what is broken
Yeah, search engines are getting smarter and smarter each year, but it's still vital to make SEO-optimization of each page of your site right! So, just make right this [link to spreadsheet of mine from other guy]
Result:
I gave you proofs in the previously – all these things makes website performance better!`
3 technique: still don't have prices, coz you want to sell it for more? Fake the price
Yeah, for now, I have to admit — that's not the best technique, but prices, even not proper ones WORK and increase the conversion rate of the site!
Result:
client's employees sad that they receive more leads, but some potential customers became very indignant because of the difference between the real price and the one on the site. It's time to develop a new script for communicating with such clients and explain that the marketer is to blame for everything :)
4 technique: cross-link similar goods!
Bushings with one sized diameter should be crossed-linked — every one page with every others with same diameter. Yeah, most likely you have a size filter on the category page, but that's not enough!
Result:
good enough as I see
5 technique: play with titles for better CTR!
Take some of your keywords with same search intent. Have a look at site impressions clicks CTR in search results. And differ descriptions, or titles for them for couple of months — you'll find a winner! And after that rewrite all of yours descriprions and titles! This can be done endlessly, constantly improving the clickability in the search results! important: each time you need to A/B-test one element - the title or description, but not all together, otherwise you will not be able to assess the impact of each specific change on clickability.
Result:
CTR of snippets increased by more than 60%!
6 technique: renew links on websites like wiki prom. Wow, free backlinks!
Yeah, excluding the fact these link is free, easy to set, also they could just give you more good conversional traffic. Also important to renew information about types of activity of the enterprise — of course, I added info about rubber bushings products.
Result:
unclear, can say for sure right now, but I made this only on couple websites and need more time to collect data!
7 technique: good old SEO silos!
That's essential to make silo structure. Especially if you are trying to be a topical authority in one specific niche — for example in rubber bushings.
Result:
of course I can't separate the other factors from this, but results are good and only became better each time I make categories or new pages under the topic of "rubber bushings".
8 technique: make your items be in a feed with goods in google "popular products"
I did it only in Yandex for a moment, but that's because I didn't find any "popular products" section for "rubber bushings" at any keyword I tried to explore. Anyway, that was easy, because I had a spreadsheet with all our items and I just needed to format it a little.
Result:
I didn't see our products in a Yandex Product feed. It might be caused by various of factors: from wrong prices to the inability to make a payment on the website
9 technique: commentary section? Use it!
I have an idea, which I desperately wanted to realize, but I couldn't because of structure of CMS-system. Just make a randomized comments for every product. It might be not a 5 stars reviews every time, but it might give, for example, more information about this particular product.
Result:
didn't make it yet
10 technique: make that your inner links open in a new window!
Use this in B2B niches, it's really convenient for the user and better for performance of your website, in this way for SEO also – search engines use info about engagement of users on every website. Plus it is just pretty convenient for the user – because now he can go from one tab to another and compare products easier. Win – win!
Result:
on screenshot. Here I can say for sure – this works. I implemented changes 28 of January and show you statistics of 2 months comparing with previous 2 months (where other changes already have been working from November, that is 3 months).
11 technique: videos about every product. Also optimize them for SEO
Another thing, which you better use! Most of your competitors think that video have no use in their B2B sphere. Of course, for them it's right idea, if you don't have videos — they don't work. But you may outstand your competition just by making video matherials. For example, this project may use lots of different approaches for videos: I want to make short videos at least for every best selling bushings. Or as we have couple of videos of Denis around his employees and machines inside his manufacture.
Result:
the trust is needed for the customer to even make some effort giving you his information. Videos are a pure condensed trust, which you can provide to your potential buyers. Also videos increase further conversion rate for payment of the invoice, because they understang the product more and feel more confident to make this deal.
I have to pay tribute to our main and most successful (so far) competitor, he used this technique, but we have not yet...
Chapter 4: How Did Online Visibility Grow With a Time
I made 6 groups of keywords:
High-volume keywords
Like "rubber bushings" or "bushings for cables" — 200 keywords, carefully selected and verified through Yandex.Wordstat. If you are interested how YOU can use Yandex.Wordstat (which is a Russian tool for keyword search quontity), click here
Double-sized keywords by inner diameter
Like "bushing 10-10", or "bushing 10 10" — 250 keywords. The idea of this group of keywords — is that they are less frequent than High-Volume keywords, but still… Average.
Double-sized keywords by outer diameter
Also like "bushing 10-10", or "bushing 10 10" —185 keywords. This group as well as pages of products on site — is one of my inventions, may be too… Controversial. The idea is the same is previous one. The difference: these bushings in a proper meaning don't exist. But I was thinking: if a lot of people in this niche use different standards to sizes of bushings, they might:
· Make mistakes while write search queries
· Not having enough knowledge to search properly
· Trying to find a non-existent bushing due to any other error (including the fact that a unique bushing is needed - and then it will require the manufacture of a whole new mold, but the person doesn't know this yet). And how else can we appear in the search results
Silicone bushings
39 keywords. These as well as next two categories are low-frequency keywords groups. Here we need to check, that if (one time in a year), user write search query like "rubber bushing 10x12x24", our snippet with this particular product will be at first place!
Bushings TU
289 keywords.
GOST bushings
168 keywords.
All in all, 1131 keywords.
I collected far more using tools like Yandex.Wordstat (Russian tool for keyword search quontity). And then we reduse it greatly with client's employees, because they understand more about bushings we can sell.
If you are interested how YOU can use Yandex.Wordstat, click here.
HOW TO CHOOSE KEYWORDS — WHAT YOU SHOULD DO AND WHY? How to collect proper keywords you really need.
Now, let me show you some analytics
Positions growing
Search Engine Traffic growing
Chapter 5: Results and Analysis
The most delicious chapter. Did all these things, some of which even different from standard SEO which you can see in other cases, give us financial results?
How did we collect leads:
1.
All leads come in commercial Mailbox. Every Mail message are tagged by employees.
2.
To understand, which leads are new — we are using AMOCRM. There we carefully write potential cost of the deal. Also we tag every unsuccessful deal by reason, why it was not succeeded.
3.
To assess the full impact of SEO across all categories (even those that were not the focus of my work), all other inquiries from the website were additionally tagged, as I also conducted overall website optimization, including all pages.
Results and Analysis
Due to the fact that the client is ready to share any information on the project, I can provide accurate financial data on the project.
New inquiries from the Rentgen.pro website for bushings: 303 pieces
Inquiries that have reached the price negotiation stage: 84 pieces
Out of those, there were 26 closed deals and 24 new clients
Current revenue from only new inquiries: 696 250 rubles
Net profit (the average return on new transactions was 67%): 466 487 rubles
Cost of the SEO contract monthly (it still continues): 700 $ * 6 months = 4200$ = 294 000 rubles
ROI (Return on Investment) for SEO: (466 487 – 294 000)/294 000*100% = 58.67% currently
But that's not all! Let's calculate the return on investment until the end to understand the actual ROI of the SEO work.
SEO can bring results for about 3 years after all the work is done – on average.
Thus, Potential revenue during the period after SEO optimization:(696 250/6 months) * 36 months = 4 177 500 rubles
Potential net profit: 4 177 500 * 67% = 2 798 925 rubles
ROI Final: (2 798 925 – 294 000)/294 000 * 100% = 852%
And here I don't even take into account repeat sales to these new customers – and in the B2B market, the percentage of repeat purchases after the first one, as you know, is much higher than in the B2C market.
Chapter 6:Thoughts After Half Year of Work On The Project
First of all, I hoped that I could push this website to results faster! Yeah, I red a lot of articles about timing in SEO — that it starts from 6 months and might even take longer period of time for first results to be seen. So, that was happened… As you saw on the screenshots whatever I tried to do, I only met the 6-month standard period...
Second thing is I really understood for sure: finding YOUR client, which wants to make a result and not tell me what to do. So, I really can't thank Denis enough for trust in me and giving me complete freedom in each project what I am doing for him. Of course, he has also a great return on investments working with me, but nevertheless, thank Denis, client one of a thousands!
SEO for B2B is unique compared to B2C. And you need to deep understand the vibe of B2B markets at least, and your particular B2B niche as well. Sometimes it requires deep understanding of technical information of your product in addition to SEO-knowledges which you also need to have.
Marketing principles is similar from Facebook Ads (which I had been working for 6 years) to making YouTube videos for companies to SEO in B2B or B2C markets.
I studied a lot of articles during my work on this project, I watched tons of videos, and have to say: 95% of them are bullshit, really. Real specialists, professionals usually don't have 100k subscribers on their channels and rarely getting to the search results page on Google or YouTube. And that's your chance — to study strategies how to find and work successfully with professionals (like this guy). That will bring you astonishing results you can't even imagine. But difference between aka "marketing factories" and "unique specialists" I will show in my next article: «something like Human of FreeWorkdom — the specialist of new Era".
Bonus: Secret B2B SEO Tricks Which I Discovered
If you are looking for MORE things, which most likely no one of your B2B competitors do – have a look at my ideas!
Trick 1: Manipulating Search Result
When I made YouTube channel for myself and for one of my clients, I used techniques for boost performance of the video. Here you can do the same thing — just open in couple of days Google and write down keyword which you're currently working on, and try to pretend that you are a real user. Have a look on competitors websites and after this go to your own website from search results.
Trick 2: Email at the Head
If you receive 95% of leads through mailing, why are you making standard forms with number, name etc? From different B2B projects which I worked with, I saw one pattern — through mail you get real clients. 99% chance. Use this hint to make more conversations through greater emphasis in any forms or design on the ability to send an email!
Don't forget: use JavaScript code to track all events when a person simply copies an email and inserts it in his mailbox!
3 trick: crush your opponents with power of... IMAGES SEO. And your images will get you more traffic from GOOGLE IMAGES also
Almost nobody think about traffic which you can get through proper seo for images. But this might become powerful instrument, especially if you use it right!
For implementers: Use this article to make this work!
Conclusions
Wow! Have you really read up to this point? Cool! Thank you, and I hope that this case will help you in your work or business!
And since you have mastered all these 5782 words, here is a free gift from me personally...
If you need a CEO that your competitors do not have...
If you are looking for unique solutions that your competitors did not think of...
If you want to aggressively squeeze the market share of your competitors (and you like my approach to solving the problems of this kind), call or write, I am happy to give you.
